The trials of Colonel Turner for burglary and of the Suffolk witches, who were condemned in the year 1665, afford perhaps the strongest instances of the slight extent to which the principles of evidence were understood. In the former the chief part of the evidence given by Sir Thomas Aleyn, the principal witness, was concerned with what other people had done and said, and would by modern methods have certainly been ruled out; in the latter the smallest apprehension of the value of testimony would have resulted in an abrupt termination of the case, for nothing which by courtesy could be called evidence was produced against the wretched old women who were being tried for their lives, and their conviction was obtained partly on the strength of a statement by Dr. Browne of Norwich, author of the _Religio Medici_, as to the nature of witches and their relations with the devil, no single word of which could have been spoken in a modern court of justice.[529] It was a state of things, due to lack of experience and of scientific vision, which prevailed until after the Revolution and exerted a powerful influence against the accused. In other points however criminal procedure in the English courts underwent changes of considerable importance. From the reign of Queen Mary until the Puritan Revolution it had remained almost unaltered, but during the Commonwealth and Protectorate several modifications were introduced. An apparently spontaneous change, inaugurated by no legislative enactment, bore witness to the fact that the view in which criminal trials were regarded was insensibly shifting from the ancient to the modern standpoint. The inquisitorial nature of the old trial was gradually disappearing. Chief among the differences which may be noted as having arisen is the fact that the prisoner was no longer systematically questioned in court. When he was questioned, it was now, if he were innocent, in his favour. His examination was no longer what it had been in the days of Elizabeth and James I, the very essence of the trial. Questions were still put to him, but now they were directed by the judges and not by the prosecution. The process was of no greater scope than was demanded by the necessities of the defence of a prisoner who has not the assistance of counsel. It was used as a natural means of arriving at the truth of statements made on one side or the other, and served to set in a clear light the strong and weak points of the defence. At the trial of the Turners, who were guilty, a lengthy examination of the prisoners by the court succeeded in shewing the great improbability of statements in their story, and tended directly to the conviction of the colonel.[530] On the other hand, in the case of Sir George Wakeman, who was innocent, the triangular series of questions between judge, witness, and prisoner had an effect which was by no means unfavourable to the accused.[531] The prisoner moreover